The aim of this study was to investigate recombinant marker allergens in patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis to tree and grass pollens. Sera of 260 tree pollen- and 282 grass pollen-allergic patients were analyzed. Bet v 1 and Phl p 1/p 5 were used as marker allergens for allergies to pollen ...

The association between sensitizations and severity of allergic diseases is controversial. This study was to investigate the association between severity of asthma and rhinitis and degree of specific allergic sensitization in allergic patients in China. A cross-sectional survey was performed in 6304 patients with asthma and/or rhinitis from 4 regions ...

Hyperuricemia is the most important risk factor for gouty arthritis. The quandary is how to predict which patient with asymptomatic hyperuricemia will develop gouty arthritis. Can ultrasonography help identify hyperuricemic individuals at risk for developing gouty arthritis? In the previous issue of Arthritis Research & Therapy, Pineda and colleagues found ...

Introduction: The examination of the synovial is very useful in the positive and differential diagnostic of many articular diseases and especially in the conditions of acute monoarthritis. Materials and Methods: The study focused on the establishment of clinical-statistical, histopathological and immunohistochemical correlations on a group of cases anatomo-pathologic diagnosed with ...

Atrial fibrillation and delayed gastric emptying (DGE) are common after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Our aim was to investigate a potential relationship between atrial fibrillation and DGE, which we defined as failure to tolerate a regular diet by the 7(th) postoperative day. We performed a retrospective chart review of 249 patients who underwent ...

Allergic rhinitis is a chronic inflammatory disease induced by an immunoglobulin (Ig) E-mediated reaction after exposure to an allergen. Many patients with allergic rhinitis and no clinical evidence of asthma show a heightened response to histamine. The aims of the study were to measure changes in markers of airway inflammation ...

To identify early predictors of stenosing tenosynovitis in the hand and hand-related activity limitations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A longitudinal study of an inception cohort. A large outpatient clinic. Consecutive patients who attended the Early Arthritis Clinic for at least 2 years and fulfilled the American College of ...

To confirm the effectiveness and safety of the interleukin 6-receptor antagonist tocilizumab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in a setting close to real-life medical care in Germany. A multicentre open-label phase IIIb study was undertaken. Patients with active RA with a 28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28) >3.2 despite previous ...

STRUCTURED ABSTRACT: Study Design. A five-year prospective cohort study of cervical instabilities in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Objective. To clarify the natural course of cervical instabilities in RA patients and to determine predictors for the prognosis of RA cervical spine.Summary of Background Data. Although several previous studies investigating the natural history of ...

Objectives. Alterations in retinal vascular calibre, particularly wider venular calibre, have been independently associated with elevated markers of inflammation and cardiovascular risk in the general population. We hypothesized that retinal vascular calibre would be altered in patients with RA, who are known to have both elevated cardiovascular risk and chronic, ...

OBJECTIVES: /st> To evaluate the presence of lymphocyte aggregates in synovial tissue of patients with early arthritis in relationship to clinical outcome and to determine whether this is a stable feature over time. METHODS: /st> Arthroscopic synovial biopsy samples were collected in a prospective cohort of disease-modifying antirheumatic drug-naïve patients ...

Off-label use of anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents for Behçet's disease (BD) is increasing. We evaluated published data on their efficacy and safety for patients with unmet medical needs due to severe disease manifestations, including ocular, gastrointestinal, and central nervous system involvement. Peer-reviewed articles on anti-TNF agents for BD appearing ...

We investigated the effect of long-term corticosteroid usage in suppressing the progression of functional disability in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We studied 3,982 RA patients, who had continuous enrollment for at least 3 years, among 9,132 RA patients enrolled in an observational cohort study, IORRA, in Tokyo, Japan, from ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the rate of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) involvement and find factors associated with TMJ arthritis in a single-center cohort of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). METHODS: Retrospective analysis of all patients with JIA visiting the rheumatology clinic between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2006. Followup information ...

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease, characterized by axial arthritis in which the genetic-environmental factors seem to be involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. This study was performed to investigate the role of polymorphisms of the programmed cell death 1 (PDCD1) gene on susceptibility to AS. In ...

Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing regular hemodialysis have high annual mortality rate of around 15%. The most predominant cause of death is cardiovascular, which is not entirely explainable with conventional cardiac risk factors present in these patients. It has been postulated that ESRD is a chronic inflammatory and ...

OBJECTIVE:: Recently new classification criteria for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) have been devised by methodology that used first a quantitative approach (data from databases), then a qualitative approach (consensus-based on paper patients) and finally a common sense based approach (evaluation of the former phases). Now these criteria are being evaluated to ...

This work was intended to evaluate the prevalence of obstructive small-airway disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and its association with clinical characteristics. Pulmonary function testing (PFT) and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) were performed on 189 consecutive RA patients. Each case was diagnosed based on abnormal HRCT findings. We ...

Cockroaches are an important indoor allergen source causing allergic rhinitis and asthma. The aim of this study was to investigate the cockroach prevalence in mainland of China and the cross-reactivity of IgE between cockroach and house dust mite allergen in Chinese patients. The cockroach sensitization pattern was based on a ...

Pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (iPAH) includes endothelial dysfunction and in situ thrombosis. A hypercoagulable state has also been postulated but never demonstrated. Our objective was to determine whether patients with iPAH had a hypercoagulable state using calibrated automated thrombography (CAT), a new tool to phenotype coagulation in vitro. ...

Background: Spondyloarthropathies are a group of closely related inflammatory arthritis which involve the axial skeleton and are negative for rheumatoid factor. Objective: This case-control study was conducted to examine HLA- B27 positivity in patients with seronegative spondyloarthritis (SSA) as per ESSG criteria and compare the frequency with healthy controls because ...

Ultrasonography provides information regarding synovial membrane proliferation and its vascularization. The AIM of our study was to evaluate the role of gray scale and power Doppler ultrasonography in assessing early rheumatoid arthritis by analyzing the scores determined by the evaluation of synovial proliferation, joint effusion, erosion or soft tissue swelling. ...

Disease patterns and manifestations may vary among different populations and change over time. The purpose of our study was to define the demographic, clinical, roentgenologic, and laboratory findings in a recent cohort of psoriatic arthritis patients followed up in rheumatology clinics in northern Israel. We conducted a cross-sectional study of ...

The airways of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are associated with increased numbers of inflammatory cells, in particular neutrophils and macrophages. Contained within the primary granules of neutrophils is the heme enzyme called myeloperoxidase (MPO) that has been used as a biomarker of neutrophilic inflammation in COPD and ...

Objective. We studied self-reported flares before menses in SLE, RA and FM, and determined whether there were differences. Methods. Part 1: women blinded to study hypothesis having menses with SLE and RA completed a 100-day diary logging their pain, fatigue and disease activity on a 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS) ...

To clarify the clinical significance of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody (anti-CCP) in the long-term outcome of RA, we established a large observational cohort of RA patients (IORRA) in our institute beginning in 2000. Essentially all RA patients who consulted our institute were registered, and clinical parameters, including disease activity and ...

To evaluate new classification criteria for peripheral spondyloarthritis (SpA) in patients with SpA with peripheral manifestations only. In this Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) study, two prespecified sets of criteria were compared against the European Spondylarthropathy Study Group (ESSG) and Amor criteria in newly referred consecutive patients with undiagnosed ...

Case-series study. To describe the clinical presentation, characteristic findings of imaging studies, and treatment of lumbar radiculopathy caused by foraminal stenosis in rheumatoid arthritis. BACKGROUND. Lumbar lesions in rheumatoid arthritis are relatively rare, with a limited number of systemic reports. Six patients with lumbar radiculopathy caused by foraminal stenosis in ...

While inducibility of atrial fibrillation (AF) is often used as an endpoint for radiofrequency ablation of AF, little is known regarding inducibility among normals. We therefore evaluated the inducibility of AF with rapid atrial pacing in patients without a clinical history of AF after catheter ablation of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). ...

Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) should aim at full remission. The aims of this study were to define: (1) how many patients reached ultrasound power Doppler (US-PD) remission in a cohort of patients with early RA (ERA) compared with longstanding RA (LSRA); (2) possible predictors of US-PD remission; and (3) ...

The development of alloantibodies that inhibit or neutralise the function of factor VIII is considered the most serious complication of the treatment of congenital haemophilia A. In order to describe their course without immune tolerance induction (ITI), we documented data on all performed inhibitor tests with dates as well as ...

More than two third of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) report fatigue. Despite its clinical relevance, only a few studies have examined the relationship of fatigue with the presence of an overlapping Fibromyalgia (FM) and other clinical and biological variables. The aim of this study was to assess the ...

Reports on Noonan syndrome (NS) have documented multiple types of coagulation defects and bleeding diathesis, and a wide range of clinical presentations. Early studies suggested that a large proportion of NS patients have coagulation defects, whereas more recent reports indicate low rates of coagulopathy. The aim of this study was ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease associated with a number of extra-articular organ manifestations. Ocular manifestations involved with RA are keratoconjunctivitis sicca, episcleritis, scleritis , corneal changes, and retinal vasculitus. The etiopathogenesis of this autoimmune disorder is still unknown. Aim of our study was to present different ocular ...

Summary. Background: The clot solubility test is the most widely used method for detection of factor (F)XIII deficiency. However, it will only detect severe deficiencies; consequently mild deficiencies and heterozygous states are probably under diagnosed. Objective: As an alternative first-line screening test, we assessed an automated quantitative ammonia release assay ...

Disturbances in the fibrinolytic system are predictors of future cardiovascular events. The aim of this study was to compare plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) activity and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) mass concentration between patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and control subjects. One hundred thirty-five patients with PCOS (lean and ...

This study was done to look for IgM antibody to parvovirus B19 in early inflammatory arthritis patients and their clinical correlations, if any. This was a retrospective case sheet based study and follow-up. IgM antibody to parvovirus B19 was studied in 47 patients who presented to the rheumatology outpatient department ...

Plasminogen activator Inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) inhibits plasminogen activators leading to decreased fibrinolysis and increased risk of thromboembolic disease (TED). Shifts in PAI-1 promoter genome from normal 5G>5G to 4G>5G or 4G>4G alleles are associated with overexpression of PAI-1. In this study patients with residual venous thrombi were observed to have ...

To evaluate the function of coagulation and fibrinolysis in cholestatic patients before and after preoperative biliary drainage (PBD). Cholestasis owing to an obstructive biliary malignancy is associated with postoperative complications related to a proinflammatory state, an impaired hepatic synthesis function, and a potential derangement of hemostasis. Hence, PBD is advocated ...

A 50-year-old male patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation was anticoagulated, with warfarin following insertion of a cardioverter defibrillator. He became markedly over anticoagulated after standard moderate induction doses of warfarin. His baseline prothrombin time was prolonged and further investigation showed the patient to have a mild factor VII ...

Targeting angiogenesis in glioblastoma (GBM) may improve patient outcome by normalizing tumor vasculature and improving delivery of chemotherapeutics and oxygen. Consequently, concomitant administration of small molecule inhibitors of the VEGF pathway will likely have a positive impact on chemoradiation treatment outcome. We conducted a Phase I study of vatalanib, a ...